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The Catholic Voyage: African Journal of Consecrated Life Vol The Catholic Voyage: African Journal of Consecrated Life Vol. 12, 2016. ISSN: 2659-0301 (Online) 1597 6610 (Print) PRIESTS AND RELIGIOUS AS FRUITS OF THE FAMILY CLETUS NWAFOR, OP1 ABSTRACT After an attempt to articulate the fact that priests and religious are uniquely, fruits of the family in keeping with Divine Ordinance, the paper makes use of what is articulated to further show that the continuity of humanity and the church consists in the family. By way of conclusion and submission, it invites all men and women of goodwill to an ever proactive resurgence against the dictatorship of the “culture of death” which more than ever threatens our collective existence—to fight and rediscover the glory of humanity which consists in the family being a domestic church. INTRODUCTION Priests and religious are not necessary being which God is. They are biological fruits of the natural family ordained by God as comprising of father, mother and their children. The family traditionally understood as such is key to understanding the co- creative role of husband and wife in the entire scheme of creation insofar as it takes the husband and his wife to achieve the procreation reality for the continuity of humanity and the church in keeping with God’s ordinance.2 In this connection, priests and religious become an even more fruitful extension of this Divine ordinance by the very reality of their being set apart as special servants of God to gather the scattered children of God to that eternal kingdom, that one great family where God will be all in all. Such is the pulsating nuance in understanding priests and religious as fruits of the family which this paper seeks to articulate. For the purpose of fruitful reflection, this paper shall explore the dialectic of love and life in situating priests and religious in the discourse on the family whilst integrating the necessity of the evangelical counsels in this regard. It shall proceed to show albeit an excursus, that the continuity of humanity and the church rests on the family and conclude by inviting all men and women of good will to an even more proactiveness against the “culture of death”. THE DIALECTIC OF LOVE AND LIFE IN SITUATING PRIESTS AND RELIGIOUS IN THE FAMILY DISCOURSE 1 Cletus Nwafor is a Dominican brother of the Province of St. Joseph the worker Nigeria and Ghana. He currently studies theology at the Dominican Institute Ibadan, Nigeria. 2 Genesis 1:28; 2:22-24. Psalm 127:3 speaks especially of children as a gift from Yahweh and a real blessing, a point clarified by Familiaris Consortio when it taught that “…the fruitfulness of conjugal love is not restricted solely to the procreation of children…” The Catholic Voyage: African Journal of Consecrated Life Vol. 12, 2016. ISSN: 2659-0301 (Online) 1597 6610 (Print) The family is a nursery of love and life. John Paul II teaches that “the fundamental task of the family is to serve life, to actualize in history the original blessing of the Creator—that of transmitting by procreation the divine image from person to person”3. In his Evangelium Vitae, He goes even further to speak of the family as the “sanctuary of life.”4 The centrality of the sanctuary of life which the family is, is intrinsically linked to the prior centrality of love which God is5, insofar as “Love begets life and life is brewed in love.” Here, the interplay of love and life in situating priests and religious in the family discourse stirs a fruitful reflection. The family is the fruit of conjugal love. Priests and religious are primary products or rather, fruits of this consummated conjugal love. As fruits of love, they freely assume the vocation of unique and radical witnessing to that Supreme Love which God is by the very reality of their vocations.6 In simple terms, priests and religious, primarily, bring God to souls and souls to God who is love. For, “Man cannot live without love. He remains a being that is incomprehensible for himself, his life is senseless, if love is not revealed to him, if he does not encounter love, if he does not experience it and make it his own, if he does not participate intimately in it.”7 Pope Francis underscores this missionary dimension of the family which Priests and Religious men and women eloquently testify to precisely in their being set apart when he taught that “the Christian family is missionary: it announces the love of God to the world.” To better dedicate themselves to this service of love and life, Religious men and women profess the evangelical counsel. But, while the evangelical counsel is native to the religious life, it cannot be said to be alien to the priesthood. To the essentiality of the counsels to the priesthood as well as the religious life we wish to now turn. THE EVANGELICAL COUNSELS: A TESTAMENT TO LOVE AND LIFE8 The evangelical counsel is grounded on the truth that God is the one good and treasure who can fulfil and satisfy his people as no created good can.9 Understood as such, the essentiality of the evangelical counsel to the priesthood and religious life 3 Familiaris Consortio, 28 4 Evangelium Vitae, 6, 11, 59,88,92,94 5 1 John 4:8 6 See, CIC 573 §1; Vita Consecrata, 3. See also, Pastores Dabo Vobis, 22-23 7 Redemptor hominis, 10 8 I am indebted to my brothers, Basil and Paul for shaping my understanding of how the evangelical counsels cannot be said to be alien to the priesthood in their book, Basil Cole,OP and Paul Conner,OP, Christian Totality Theology of the Consecrated Life(Mumbai: St Paul Press, 1997),p. 326-329. Hereafter: Christian Totality Theology of the Consecrated Life. 9 Vita Consecrata, 16 . see also, Christian Totality Theology of the Consecrated Life ,p. 328 The Catholic Voyage: African Journal of Consecrated Life Vol. 12, 2016. ISSN: 2659-0301 (Online) 1597 6610 (Print) becomes evident while the reductionism that sees the counsel as an exclusive preserve of the Religious life diminishes. To me, the distinctions usually made between radical poverty, chastity and obedience embraced by the Religious on the one hand and then, clerical poverty, celibate-chastity and obedience embraced by secular priests is more of a technical distinction than a real distinction. For, in effect, the counsels aids Priests and Religious to conform their lives more and more to the example of the Poor, Chaste and Obedient Christ their spouse. John Paul II echoes this fact when he teaches that, “Jesus Christ, who brought his pastoral charity to perfection on the cross with a complex exterior and interior emptying of self, is both the model and source of the virtue of obedience, chastity and poverty which the priest is called to live out as an expression of his pastoral charity for his brothers and sisters…”10 Hence, every Priest whether a secular or religious need to cultivate what theology calls the “evangelical counsels of ease”: obedience, chastity and poverty. For even when these counsels are not professed as vows, the virtues they represent greatly assist especially the diocesan or secular Priests to live up to the dignity and mission to which he has been consecrated by the imposition of hands and the prayer of consecration.11 Speaking of the evangelical counsel vis-à-vis its native audience that is, the consecrated persons, John Paul II reiterates that, the profession of the evangelical counsels makes them a kind of sign and prophetic statement for the community of the brethren and for the world; consequently they can echo in a particular way the ecstatic words spoken by Peter: "Lord, it is well that we are here" (Mt 17:4). These words bespeak the Christocentric orientation of the whole Christian life. But they also eloquently express the radical nature of the vocation to the consecrated life: how good it is for us to be with you, to devote ourselves to you, to make you the one focus of our lives! Truly those who have been given the grace of this special communion of love with Christ feel as it were caught up in his splendour: he is "the fairest of the sons of men" (Ps 45:2), the One beyond compare.12 Speaking of the necessity of the counsels as the surest and securest means to eternal bliss vis-à-vis the new law and the states of life being considered in this discourse, the robust and clarificatory teaching of the Angelic Doctor of the church is noteworthy. Aquinas teaches us that, … man is placed between the things of this world, and spiritual goods wherein eternal happiness consists: so that the more he cleaves to the one, the more he withdraws from the other, and conversely. Wherefore he that cleaves 10 Pastores Dabo Vobis, 30g 11Christian Totality Theology of the Consecrated Life, p. 326. See also, CIC 1009 §2 12 Vita Consecrata, 15 The Catholic Voyage: African Journal of Consecrated Life Vol. 12, 2016. ISSN: 2659-0301 (Online) 1597 6610 (Print) wholly to the things of this world, so as to make them his end, and to look upon them as the reason and rule of all he does, falls away altogether from spiritual goods. Hence this disorder is removed by the commandments. Nevertheless, for man to gain the end aforesaid, he does not need to renounce the things of the world altogether: since he can, while using the things of this world, attain to eternal happiness, provided he does not place his end in them: but he will attain more speedily thereto by giving up the goods of this world entirely: wherefore the evangelical counsels are given for this purpose.
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